1455 piece wood puzzle, "Lucrèce Borgia au Vatican," Rex Véra, France.
I will leave the title as is - which is how Véra has it labelled on the box - but the actual title of this painting is "Lucretia Borgia Reigns in the Vatican in the Absence of Pope Alexander VI" (ca. 1910) by English neoclassical artist Frank Cadogan Cowper.
Lucretia (or Lucrezia) Borgia (1480 - 1519) was an Italian noblewoman of the Borgia family who led a fast-paced life. She was the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI, one of many illegitimate children of the infamous pope. Very well-educated, and by all accounts extremely beautiful, she was married three times in her short life, and had several extramarital affairs on top of that. She also reigned as the governor of Spoleto, and is admired by historians for her abilities in administration.
She is also portrayed as a femme fatale in many literary works, owing to rumors about her and her family's involvement in various politically motivated murders, illegitimate children, alleged incest, rampant bribery, and a general soap opera of the Italian Renaissance's rich and powerful.
In this painting, Cowper re-imagines an incident in 1501 when Lucrezia took the place of the pope at a meeting. You can see two noblemen parting her dress so a Franciscan friar can kiss her shoe. Cadogan visited the meeting-room in the Vatican, which is still intact today, to make his painting.
I found the puzzle enjoyable enough, but I submit this photo as Exhibit A of why I don't like this kind of cut. Maria calls it a "poodle" cut, or maybe it's a doodle cut, as it looks like some bored kid took a white pen and savaged the print with curlicues. Color-line cutting achieves such a more beautiful finished look. Nevertheless, I am happy to have one example of this Véra series having quite a few Royal, Apollo and Art Modèrne already.
The other thing that is interesting about this puzzle is that it has a repeat pattern - not just repeated twice, top and bottom, reversed, but also left and right quadrants, so there are four basically identical pieces. I say "basically" because, toward the end when I was working on the upper curves, I came across three pieces which looked as if they should fit, but just didn't quite make it. I thought maybe they were poorly made replacements, but further inspection suggested they were original; eventually (and tricky, because the repeat pattern mimics the mirrored architecture!) I had to swap out the three pieces on one side with their twins on the other side.
So, the puzzle is complete and original, with one broken edge piece due to a thin connection. I still can't figure out how it was cut, though. They had to first cut it into four sections, and then stack-cut it from there. I will flip it over so we can have a better look. Are all Véra Rex puzzles (or, the larger ones) cut in repeat sections like this one? I will see what Denis Charvériat has to say in his book Établissements Véra.. Maybe it was a cost-saving measure and Rex was considered the economy line.
Completed in 17 hr., 23 mins. with no prior knowledge of the image. 1,455 total pieces: 43.0 secs./piece; 83.7 pcs./hr. Difficulty rating: 4.3/10.
1455 piece wood puzzle, "Lucrèce Borgia au Vatican," Rex Véra, France.
I will leave the title as is - which is how Véra has it labelled on the box - but the actual title of this painting is "Lucretia Borgia Reigns in the Vatican in the Absence of Pope Alexander VI" (ca. 1910) by English neoclassical artist Frank Cadogan Cowper.
Lucretia (or Lucrezia) Borgia (1480 - 1519) was an Italian noblewoman of the Borgia family who led a fast-paced life. She was the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI, one of many illegitimate children of the infamous pope. Very well-educated, and by all accounts extremely beautiful, she was married three times in her short life, and had several extramarital affairs on top of that. She also reigned as the governor of Spoleto, and is admired by historians for her abilities in administration.
She is also portrayed as a femme fatale in many literary works, owing to rumors about her and her family's involvement in various politically motivated murders, illegitimate children, alleged incest, rampant bribery, and a general soap opera of the Italian Renaissance's rich and powerful.
In this painting, Cowper re-imagines an incident in 1501 when Lucrezia took the place of the pope at a meeting. You can see two noblemen parting her dress so a Franciscan friar can kiss her shoe. Cadogan visited the meeting-room in the Vatican, which is still intact today, to make his painting.
I found the puzzle enjoyable enough, but I submit this photo as Exhibit A of why I don't like this kind of cut. Maria calls it a "poodle" cut, or maybe it's a doodle cut, as it looks like some bored kid took a white pen and savaged the print with curlicues. Color-line cutting achieves such a more beautiful finished look. Nevertheless, I am happy to have one example of this Véra series having quite a few Royal, Apollo and Art Modèrne already.
The other thing that is interesting about this puzzle is that it has a repeat pattern - not just repeated twice, top and bottom, reversed, but also left and right quadrants, so there are four basically identical pieces. I say "basically" because, toward the end when I was working on the upper curves, I came across three pieces which looked as if they should fit, but just didn't quite make it. I thought maybe they were poorly made replacements, but further inspection suggested they were original; eventually (and tricky, because the repeat pattern mimics the mirrored architecture!) I had to swap out the three pieces on one side with their twins on the other side.
So, the puzzle is complete and original, with one broken edge piece due to a thin connection. I still can't figure out how it was cut, though. They had to first cut it into four sections, and then stack-cut it from there. I will flip it over so we can have a better look. Are all Véra Rex puzzles (or, the larger ones) cut in repeat sections like this one? I will see what Denis Charvériat has to say in his book Établissements Véra.. Maybe it was a cost-saving measure and Rex was considered the economy line.
Completed in 17 hr., 23 mins. with no prior knowledge of the image. 1,455 total pieces: 43.0 secs./piece; 83.7 pcs./hr. Difficulty rating: 4.3/10.